Stop Being a People Pleaser!

Welcome to A New Life podcast with Pamela Jean, where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready, friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean.

Hello my friends and welcome to this week's episode of A New Life podcast. This is Pamela Jean. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you so much for joining me in spending a little bit of time in my world today. Where are my people pleasers? That's who I am talking to today. I want to talk about what it means to be a people pleaser and I want to give you some practical tips and ideas on how to stop being a people pleaser. We all have been there at one time or another that we have said yes to something we really did not want to. But we said yes because we didn't want to hurt someone's feelings out of fear or afraid of what others would think of us. We keep saying yes to appease everyone else except ourselves. Learning how to place boundaries in your life is your pathway to curing your people pleasing tendency. If we are honest, most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, really most of us don't have good boundaries. It's my opinion that most women have a harder time placing boundaries than men do. Why is that? We are simply wired differently, that is for sure. But women in general take the opinions of others to heart. We want to be liked. It's important for us to look a certain way or feel a certain way. We want the world outside of us to think that we have it all together, that we can take on everything, that somehow we have our own set of superhero powers, that we can do everything and never have to say no because we can handle it all. But in reality, all we are doing is running ourselves into the ground, causing undue stress and anxiety. And we all know that nothing good comes from the emotional side effects of stress and anxiety. Along with stress comes weight gain, lack of sleep, bad food choices, anxiety, the same things you're not sleeping at night because you stretch yourself so thin. You've been violated by the boundaries that you have not set. Not that other people violate you, but you have been violated by the boundaries that you have not set. So let's talk about boundaries just a little bit. Boundaries are a way of setting the limits. Basically to say, this is how far I will go, this is all that I will do, and this is what I will and won't tolerate from you. Boundaries are like a field of protection. Imagine a boundary being a coat of armor that protects you like this force field around you. You can't see it, but it's there. The armor prevents you from being taken advantage of, being used for the sake of others. And always remember, no one can take advantage of you unless you allow them to. That's so important to know that no one can make you feel anything, no one can take advantage of you, no one can make you feel guilty, no one can make you feel shame. Unless you allow someone to do so. Unless you give them that power. You truly are the gatekeeper of your own well being. Guard your gate with a healthy, secure boundary. Sometimes we hide behind the excuse of being a people pleaser, but in reality we just don't have a backbone. We don't have self love and we don't have the discernment to tell someone no and stand up for ourselves. And I want to point this out, anytime you're saying yes to something, that means you have to say no to something else in your life. Keep saying yes and adding more and more and more. And think honestly that you'll have a good outcome. Because every time you say yes to something, you're going to say no. You have to say no to something else. Everyone I ask, everyone I have a conversation with, is your plate full? The answer is always yes. No one ever says, oh, I have all kinds of free time, I have nothing going on. Actually, I'm kind of bored. I never hear that everyone has their plates full, full. Why do we keep piling on? We have to always know that if you're saying yes to something, you have to say no to something else or something or someone very important to you is going to suffer. So I want to point out something really, really important. If you don't get anything out of this conversation today, I want you to understand this. Boundaries are not meant to be used to control somebody else's behavior. Boundaries are not about controlling other people. Boundaries are healthy and necessary, but they should never be used to control other people or leverage someone or leverage a circumstance. Because boundaries are meant to protect you, to safeguard you. They're not meant to punish and they're not meant to control. That's extremely important and I want to make sure that you understand that. So to shift gears just a little bit, I want to talk to my business owners as well. Because business owners, self employed people, whether you are a photographer, whether you have a hair salon, or you are a realtor or a boutique owner, it doesn't matter what business you are in, it does not matter. You have to have healthy boundaries as well. Being self Employed and entrepreneur. It is not easy, especially if you are in the business building phase. You say yes to everything. Yes to absolutely everything. I remember what that was like. It's really, really hard because you're trying to build your business. You don't want to say no to anything. You don't want to miss any opportunities because you're afraid you're going to starve. You have that fear of not having enough money, of starvation, putting food on the table. So you're saying yes to absolutely everything. You're answering emails at all times of the day and night, text messages, DMs at any and all hours. You may be thinking that you're getting things taken care of and checking things off the list, but in reality, what you're doing is you're teaching your clients an unsustainable way of doing business. And you're also not taking the time to look at each circumstance and each client potential and potential no business and ask yourself, is the business that I'm considering right for me, right for my business? Are you just taking things on for fear of not having any cash flow? Or are you really taking on the clients that you can serve best that are your ideal clients? It's really important for you to understand that and to keep that in mind. So how do you know if you need to establish businesses boundaries in your business? If you say yes to any of these questions or these statements, then you absolutely have to get some boundaries in place. Number one, you get annoyed at a client when they text you at 10pm on a Sunday night and expect you to answer their question. Do you get annoyed when someone texts you at 10pm on Sunday and they expect an answer? Number two, you feel spread so thin, all you seem to do every single day is put out fires. Number three, you are not spending enough time on your business. You're only spending time in your business. Now, what that means is when you're spending time on your business, you are working on building and growing your business. If you are spending time in your business, you are literally just a busy bee flying back and forth, putting fires out, taking care of things and getting things checked off the list. You are not spending time on your business where you're building. Number four, you are starting to resent or even regret that you started a business in the first place. It's just too much. You can't do it. You don't want to do it. It's just too much. Now, if you've answered yes to any of those statements or any of those statements resonated with you. It is a resounding yes that you need to have boundaries in your business. I want to tell you a quick little story. Back in the day when I was building my first photography studio, I had given birth to my second child. My son was born and he was born, I think like a Wednesday or something and got home on Friday. Well, Saturday morning. My business was in my home at the time, at a home based studio as I was building my first studio and someone knocked on the door at Saturday morning like at 10 o' clock and I just got home from having a baby like the day before. And they expected to pick up their order. They wanted to pick up their order on a Saturday. Well, first of all, all of my clients knew, except for that one apparently, that it was by appointment only. And I did not open the doors on Saturdays to clients. Saturday and Sundays were my family time. They stood there and expected me to go get their order and I told them no. I said, I just had a baby. I will contact you on Monday and we'll schedule an appointment to have you come back and pick up your order. Now I could have gotten the order, handed it to them and left. But number one, I just had a baby. I wasn't ready to meet a client. I wasn't professionally dressed. I didn't have their order out and ready for them to see. There's a process that I go through. It was their convenience that they were worried about. But I honored my boundary. Now granted, I was back to the office on Monday and working again. But I was not going to give in on that Saturday. So it was a healthy boundary that I needed to have. So friends, here's the deal. Boundaries are necessary. You must have them in your life. If you have healthy boundaries in your personal life, you will have them in your work life as well. The two things are very, very connected. How you maintain your integrity, your self care, your self love, how you stand up for yourself in your work life. You will do the same in your personal life. It's so important to create a balanced life in all areas of your life. And starting with boundaries is a great place to start. You don't have to live life dreading every day. You can have a life filled with peace, balance, happiness and success. It's truly possible, my friends, you can have every result that you want from your life. I promise you, you can. It's absolutely possible. I can help you with this. As a life coach and a business mentor, we can lock arms together and make this happen. We will start with addressing fear. Fear. Nearly everything that is a conflict in your life begins with fear. So we start there. We find out what is holding you back. What is the lifelong experience that you are taking with you that is controlling your ability to put down healthy boundaries in your work life and in your business life. This is truly transformational. You can have the life of business and boundaries. I'm sorry, you can have the life and business of your dreams. Let's get started working on that together today. So shoot me an email, pamela jean.anew lifemail.com and let's do this. Thank you my friends, for joining me today. Make it the best day ever.

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